Again?
Copyright© 2016 by Old Man with a Pen
Chapter 1
Ingénieur de diplôme de troisième classe Anton, Baron De' Vaux or De'vrole ... depending on who one is conversing ... was lost. It had seemed to him that the best way to find the new, as yet unfinished, Scarpe supérieure canal, was to follow the excavation.
The new waterway ran from Arras to Corbehem where it would join the Canal de la Sensée and then changed names again and became the Canal de Dérivation de la Scarpe.
Farther down stream the Canal attached yet another name; Canal d'Aire. This guise it wore until the name Canal d'Aire à la Bassée was blessed upon it.
Some few miles closer to the sea the waterway became the Canal de Neuffossé, such pretension... Canal de Neuffossé. Then the name became L'Aa (Fleuve Canalisé).
At the split, L'Aa went left to the sea and the Canal de la Haute Colme went right.
All this he knew when the Bureau of Waterways, Department of Transportation, hired him to assist Professor Lafete with the mathematics.
It was mid summer 1888.
Mounting his favorite hunter at midnight he posted away from home and began the search. The diggings were where it was suggested they would be found ... but ... which way should he take to find the Professor?
"Alors!" he exclaimed. "I am lost."
Gesticulating in the French manner he suggested to his horse that she was responsible for his predicament. Pausing in his harangue, he bethought his grandfathers watch.
Bestowed on him during the event of his graduation from University, it was a prize heirloom. Retrieving it from his watch pocket he popped open the hunter case and stared at the dial. There was just enough light to read it.
"Mon Dieu! I am of the latest. Late is no way to impress your new employer, Anton." He closed the hunter case and put the watch away.
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